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Introduction a Global History of Execution and the Criminal Corpse

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Introduction a Global History of Execution and the Criminal Corpse OPEN Introduction A Global History of Execution and the Criminal Corpse Richard Ward Capital punishment is a historical universal – it has been practised at some point in the history of virtually all known societies and places. That is not to say, however, that it is a historical constant – the use, form, function and meaning of execution has varied greatly across different historical contexts.1 This is likewise true for an important – although relatively neglected – aspect of capital punishment: the fate of the criminal body after execution. The treatment and understanding of the criminal corpse has differed across time and place, but it has always been a potent force and throughout its history it has been harnessed for the ends of state power, medical science and criminal justice, amongst many other things. By examining execution and the executed body across a wide temporal and geographical span, this collection of essays provides a fresh perspective on the history of capital punishment, and in the process it seeks to add considerable detail to our knowledge of penal practice in early modern Europe, and to allow us to rethink some of the most commonly cited drivers of penal practice and change. In setting out this line of thought, this introductory chapter is divided into three main sections. First, it begins by sketching out the practice and meaning of execution and the executed body in early mod- ern Europe as essential background context for the chapters that follow, particularly Chapters 1–5, which focus on capital punishment and the criminal corpse in a selection of European nations in the long eight- eenth century. Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries a whole host of desecrations were enacted on the criminal body (both dead and alive) in capital punishment’s role as an elementary particle of state power and crime control. The rise and fall of aggravated forms of execu- tion which attacked the dead criminal body thus formed an important part of the wider history of capital punishment in early modern and 1 R. Ward (ed.), A Global History of Execution and the Criminal Corpse © The Editor(s) 2015 2 A Global History of Execution and the Criminal Corpse modern Europe. Secondly, the introduction moves on to consider a number of overarching theories which have been put forward to explain the nature and development of capital punishment in Europe across the early modern and modern eras, namely: as a shift in the technologies of power; as a ‘civilising process’ impacting on sensibilities; and as a transformation in the social experience and cultural meaning of death. Together these theories have highlighted social control, feelings to the sight of violence and attitudes to the body, death and the afterlife as key motors of penal practice and change. But, we might ask, how (if at all) have these drivers operated within historical contexts far removed from early modern Europe, and what does this suggest, by extension, about the wider applicability of our current overarching explanations of change? Chapters 6–9, which range beyond the bounds of early modern Europe, offer some fascinating insights on this subject. The introduction then concludes by introducing each chapter individually and highlighting some of the interconnections and insights which they together provide. Execution and the Criminal Corpse in Early Modern Europe A comprehensive account of execution and the executed body in Europe between the late Middle Ages and the nineteenth century is beyond the scope of this Introduction. What I intend to do, rather, is to broadly sketch out the extent to which capital punishment and the desecration of the criminal corpse was put into practice, the various forms that it took, the functions that it was intended to fulfil, the cultural meaning that it held for contemporaries, and how this changed over time, paying particular attention to England, the Netherlands, Germany and France. My aim is to provide essential background context for Chapters 1–5 in this volume, by placing the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries within the wider perspective of capital punishment in the early modern period as a whole, and to draw out some of the major themes explored in the chapters that follow. A number of distinctive features mark out executions and the treatment of the criminal corpse in the long eight- eenth century from the centuries immediately preceding it, and these need to be highlighted. Extent How frequently was capital punishment carried out in early modern Europe, and how did this change over time? Whilst the evidence is Introduction 3 patchy, a broad pattern can be identified across much of Western Europe. Levels of execution fluctuated greatly, but not in any simple or linear way. Most notably, in relation to Chapters 1–5 in this volume, the eighteenth century witnessed something of a resurgence in execu- tion rates. By no means did this reach the astronomical levels of the later sixteenth century, when numbers appear to have peaked, but the frequency with which offenders were being put to death in Western Europe in the eighteenth century was greater than the later seventeenth century. In the later medieval period, so far as we can tell, given the lack of available sources and detailed research so far undertaken, levels of capital punishment appear to have been relatively low. Just thir- teen people were hanged for felony in Warwickshire between 1377 and 1397, a situation which seems to be indicative of the pattern in England more widely, marked as it was by extremely low rates of conviction for capital offences.2 In France too, whilst executions were no doubt becoming increasingly spectacular in the later Middle Ages, nevertheless they seem to have been relatively infrequent compared with subsequent centuries.3 Indeed, there appears to have been a sharp increase in levels of capital punishment in the sixteenth century, fol- lowed by a subsequently large and rapid decline in executions from the second quarter of the seventeenth century onwards, such that by c. 1700 capital punishment was running at a relatively low level, a pat- tern that was followed across much of Western Europe. It is in evidence for several English counties, including the palatinate jurisdictions of Chester and Lancaster, for which the court records are relatively intact. In Chester, about nine offenders were being put to death each year in the 1580s, rising to an annual average of nearly seventeen in the 1620s. Thereafter, however, execution levels fell precipitously, halving in the 1630s and falling to a total of just ten executions in the first decade of the eighteenth century, a pattern that was, according to J. A. Sharpe, ‘a very marked example of a national trend’.4 Whilst aggregate figures are not available for the territories of the Holy Roman Empire now encom- passed within present-day Germany, studies of individual towns have nonetheless revealed remarkably similar patterns of capital punishment to those found in England.5 In both Nuremberg and Frankfurt, absolute numbers of executions reached a peak in the second half of the six- teenth century, falling thereafter, particularly from the second quarter of the seventeenth century onwards. By the end of the seventeenth century levels of execution in both territories were about 15 per cent of what they had been a hundred years earlier.6 4 A Global History of Execution and the Criminal Corpse At the beginning of the eighteenth century then, levels of execution were running at historically low levels, certainly compared with recent previous centuries. Yet in many parts of Western Europe, execution lev- els and the severity of the capital sanctions meted out to offenders wit- nessed something of a resurgence in the course of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, particularly at times of concern about social disorder, political insurgency or criminality. In London, levels of execu- tion increased significantly during post-war panics about crime, such as in the 1750s, 1780s and 1810s.7 To be sure, in the 1780s and on the eve of criminal law reform in the 1820s and 1830s, executions were taking place in London more frequently than at any time since the reign of the early Stuarts.8 Executions similarly increased in Nuremberg in the second quarter of the eighteenth century, and the relative severity of the execu- tions enacted was on the rise. Aggravations to decapitation by the sword continued in significant numbers in Nuremberg throughout the period, but they made up a greater percentage of all the executions actually car- ried out in the early eighteenth century than in the later sixteenth cen- tury.9 The most significant increase in judicial severity in the eighteenth century appears to have been in the Netherlands. The years 1650 to 1750 saw a substantial increase in the number of executions carried out in Amsterdam. Nearly twice as many offenders were put to death there in the years 1701–50 (281) as against the previous fifty years (151).10 Form The late Middle Ages to the nineteenth century also witnessed signifi- cant changes in the form of executions and the punishments that were inflicted upon the criminal corpse. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in particular saw a conspicuous shift towards aggravated forms of execution which attacked the dead, rather than the live, criminal body. In short, if the ruling authorities of eighteenth-century Europe were increasingly unwilling to publicly inflict the kinds of pre-mortem, physical torments which had come to prominence in the sixteenth century, they were, however, willing to impose similar (and other) sanc- tions upon the criminal corpse. Post-mortem punishments continued to be enacted, and in some respects were even extended, throughout the course of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
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